


Just Short Of A Fairy Tale

by LittleWonderly



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: Alternate Universe - No Exy (All For The Game), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Panic Attacks, Pre-Relationship, mentions of abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-16
Updated: 2020-01-16
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:08:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 13,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22282399
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LittleWonderly/pseuds/LittleWonderly
Summary: The first time Andrew saw green eyes he didn’t see much of him at all.
Relationships: Kevin Day/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 20
Kudos: 178





	Just Short Of A Fairy Tale

**Author's Note:**

> (Done as part of an exchange where I received the prompt “This girl kept hitting on you on the bus and you looked extremely uncomfortable so I sit next to you and put an arm around you.")
> 
> If you’re interested, because it always fascinates me, I listened to the song Nightmares by All Time Low when writing this and it’s where the title comes from.
> 
> Non beta'd so there's that, its probably a mess.

The first time Andrew saw green eyes he didn’t see much of him at all. 

His car was going to be in the shop for an unknown amount of time for repairs and maintenance, a litany of upgrades that were neither cheap nor necessary. It had made Aaaron audibly roll his eyes over the phone when Andrew had told him for no other reason than to get that exact reaction. 

The ridiculous payout from Tildas life insurance had been kept aside to pay their way through college. Aarons was putting him through pre-med across the country and Andrews had bought him freedom and an open road. A way to escape on a moment's notice and the ability to change his surroundings without being dependent on any one else. 

His current surroundings were a middling college he had settled on that had next to nothing to recommend it. Andrew didn’t need a fancy education or the huge bill that came with it. He kept enough of his share of the money to gain a passtime and nothing more. He could have chosen a school closer to Aaron, hell he could have chosen the same school. Time and a mountain of therapy had taught them that they needed the time apart. It didn’t mean Andrew had to be happy about it. 

Aaron hated his car. It didn’t help that it was monstrously expensive. Aaron saw it as a slap in the face, a cruel reminder of the brutal way his mother had died, burned up and torn to pieces in the front seat of her own shit heap of a vehicle after driving drunk. Andrew just called it poetic irony, but it would take more time than they’d had to make what happened to Aaron’s mother okay. 

The bells and whistles were amusements to Andrew, a way to rile up his brother while drawing out the last of his ability to make a mockery of Tilda and money that would have her turning over in her grave if she knew Andrew had gotten half of. 

Bee told him it was good for him to want nice things for himself. Bee told had told him many stupid things in the years since she had taken him in, fresh out of juvie and angry at everything. Some of the things she said he had been known to believe. 

What he didn’t believe was why he thought riding the local bus to campus every day was a good idea. 

His dorm building wasn’t a long ride from campus but it was long enough for Andrew to dislike every single second of it. The first day he had made the mistake of taking the bus that would drop him off only a few minutes before his class started and was forced to endure cramped quarters with that felt like half of his fellow college classmates. The press of so many bodies left him feeling like a used tissue, dirtied and stained. He didn’t make that mistake the second day. 

Few college students in the area ventured into the world before the sun rose and of the few who did, even less braved public transport. When Andrew climbed aboard the bus that second morning there were only two other people, a balding man falling asleep in his seat and a guy not much older than he playing on his phone. 

It was a welcome difference and Andrew placed himself at the back, eyes watchful but his body as free of tension as he was capable. With no one at his back and entire rows between him and the others, he might just make it through the next few days. 

The bus glided to a halt at the next stop and Andrew noticed someone else get on only in the way one can tell another body is moving in your vicinity. He didn’t look away from the window he was watching, tracing spider cracks on the glass and fingering the edges of his armbands idly. His ears followed the sound of footsteps and then the squeak of a seat out of habit, survival, but it was mostly arbitrary by now. Andrew had learnt how to protect himself and kept that protection never more than a few inches from his fingertips. 

He had a few hours to kill before his first class and a sudden excess of time to fill. There was a coffee shop off campus that he preferred but usually had little time to detour to. The Foxhole was the only place he could get himself a decent cup of coffee for once and if he was lucky, maybe one of the sugared donuts while they were still warm. 

“Hey.” 

Renee’s dorm was closer to campus and pretty much on the way. She’d been pestering him in that polite way that sounded like an offer but was definitely a demand for a while now for him to come by. 

“ _Hey!_ I just want to talk to you.” 

Andrew drew his gaze away from the window with annoyance and looked down the length of the bus. Guy with the phone was no longer the guy with the phone. He had moved seats, now kneeling in the second row across the back of the seat in front. The seat in front was not empty. 

Andrew couldn’t see much of the person sitting there from his angle. Tall, male, young, probably, but it was hard to tell with the way he was slouched in his seat. He had a grey hoodie pulled up over his head obscuring him. Nothing much about him was obvious to see except for what the guy behind him was clearly missing. 

He was not interested in being bothered. 

“Come on, it’s not polite to ignore someone.” 

It wasn’t polite to harass someone on public transport but Andreew kept that one to himself. If hoodie guy was answering him it didn’t carry enough for Andrew to hear. 

The guy reached forwards and ran his fingers over the back of hoodies head and Andrew felt his skin crawl. He’d have told the guy to fuck off by now, or maybe he’d have just skipped to wiping the grin he could hear was spread across his face. Hoodie guy either had the patience of a saint or the backbone the size of a thimble. 

Andrew couldn’t hear what else was said as the guy leaned forwards and dropped his voice but the way hoodie seemed to slump didn’t suggest it was anything good. 

There was a loud screech of tires as the bus came to a halt, the brakes jerking them to a stop rough enough that even sleeping man stirred for a moment. Creepy guy muttered something that sounded rude as he picked himself up out of his seat, stalking past the driver who only waved him off dismissively before shutting the doors behind him. 

His distraction was already flittering away. He let his eyes settle only briefly on the man left behind, let the way he seemed to sag even further in on himself skim momentarily in his attention and then returned to looking out the window. If the donuts were still warm, he would buy a dozen and go see Renee, he decided. 

…

He had forgotten all about the incident from the previous morning until he stepped onto the bus the next day to the same guy with his phone a few inches from his face. It slowed his steps as he waved his pass at the driver and made his way up the aisle. He gave the guy the barest of glances this time, which was more than he gave most strangers, and noted how he was stocky but not tall, had dark curls that might be attractive if they weren’t shoved into the least attractive man bun Andrew had ever seen. 

He was looking at his phone with a frown, typing fast and seeming to not like what he was reading in return. He looked up and scowled as Andrew walked past but looked away quickly when Andrew only flicked him a blank look back. 

The jostling of the bus starting to move again pushed him to secure his seat at the back. There was no one else aboard but them this time and when Andrew sat down he found himself watching the door at the front. There was an energy tickling at his skin that he couldn’t place, an annoyance that was made his hands twitch restlessly on his knees. 

He couldn’t put a name to it until the bus slowed, the doors creaking as they opened and hoodie guy ambled up the steps. Disgustingly, it was apprehension. Bee would have called it worry. 

He hadn’t watched the guy find his seat the day before but he watched now. He was wearing a grey hoodie again, darker, but bigger too. The hood was pulled so far over his face that Andrew could only glimpse the tiniest tuft of black hair sticking out. The sleeves were pulled down low over his hands, completely obscuring them. Though, the way he was clutching them close to his chest did a good enough job of that anyway. His face was tucked down so low that Andrew didn’t get a look before he folded himself into the same front seat in the same low posture. 

How someone that tall thought he could make himself seem even the slightest bit small he didn’t know. If he had noticed the presence of his harasser he didn’t show it, not glancing around him even once as the bus got moving again. 

Andrew glanced. His already tight fingers curled even more when creep stood immediately, glancing once at his phone before pocketing it. It was no business of Andrew’s if hoodie guy didn’t have the balls to tell someone to fuck off yet he found himself bracing all the same, poised for an action he hadn’t yet decided on. 

“Feeling friendlier today?” Creep sneered, voiced pitched high enough for Andrew to catch as he stepped up beside hoodie. “Come on, I'm sure you can make room for me.” 

He didn’t wait for hoodie to make any sort of response, using his weight to push his way onto the seat and force the other to move over lest he get sat on. Even through the blanket of fabric hoodie was hiding under Andrew could see him tense and lean himself as far sideways from creep as he could. Why didn’t he just speak up? 

“See, this is more cosy.” Creep cooed and reached up a hand to try and pull back the other man's hood. Andrew was on his feet before he fully registered the full body flinch hoodie gave as he jerked away. 

“Oh come on, I just want to talk.”

“Excuse you, you’re in my seat.” Andrew said loudly, finding himself standing over creep between one blink and the next. Creep turned to look at him with his lip curled up in disgust. Andrew understood the sentiment, he too was feeling vaguely nauseated with the current situation. 

“Mind your fucking business.” Creep snarled at him and Andrew almost had to scoff. 

“Right now you are my business.” Andrew said with completely no tone, looking creep up and down dismissively. “You are in my seat.” 

“Fuck off.” Creep replied, turning himself away and back to hoodie. It was a mistake, one Andrew was happy for him to make. 

“I don’t think you understand me,” he said, waiting for creep to look back at him, mouth already gaping wide with whatever profanity he was about to bless Andrew with, letting the tip of one of his knives peek out the edge of his armband. 

It was a risk, exposing that he held a weapon on public transport but one he frankly didn’t care about. Creep was a bully, a lesser being who got off on the thrill of making those around him uncomfortable. Andrew had met the monsters that lived in the dark, had endured the things that made most people scurry away into their nests. A simple bully held no power to frighten him. Nothing frightened Andrew anymore. 

“You can’t,” Creep started to say and his voice was high, nervous. Good. 

“You are in my seat.” Andrew repeated and let just enough of his tone darken to get his point across. He wasn’t going to be saying it again. 

When creep stood Andrew was mildly pleased to see it was shakily. 

“What do you care?” Creep threw at him but it was said weakly. 

There was no real reason for Andrew to elaborate, no reason for him to fabricate an excuse. Creep was already walking away, edging past even as his eyes flicked back down to the blade Andrew had already concealed but fingered in warning. Yet there was something in his gaze, the way he looked back at hoodie that made all of Andrews warning bells chime. It was the look of a predator, a pathetic excuse for one as it was, already calculating how to bide his time. 

Hoodie hadn’t said a word, hadn’t done anything except press himself into the window since Andrew had spoken up. He only allowed his eyes to glance over for a moment, one quick sweep over his form. If creep was the predator, hoodie looked every inch the prey; left out in the open and on display. It was a feeling Andrew was intimately familiar with. 

“He’s my boyfriend.” Andrew said, raising one eyebrow when all creep could seem to do in response to that was stare dumbly. The look suited him. It was like a monkey. Stupid. 

He flicked his fingers dismissively. “Run along.” 

Maybe Renee’s God was smiling down on him because creep did just that, proverbial tail between his arse cheeks. 

Andrew waited only long enough to see him seated, phone instantly back in his face before sliding slowly on to the edge of the bench next to hoodie, broadcasting his movements and making sure not to touch. 

“He’s fucked off.” He said when hoodie didn’t so much as turn to look at him. 

“You’re welcome.” 

Nothing. He wasn’t sure he had any reason to expect otherwise. 

He knew what he should say, what people like his cousin and his therapist would expect him to say, but comfort and soft words always melted like cotton candy in his mouth. Gone as soon as he tried to hold onto them, disintegrating and running down the back of his throat. Andrew wasn’t the type of person to comfort. He had had that ripped out of him far too many years ago. Still…

“Look, I know you don’t know me and I sure as fuck have no desire to get to know you, but unless you want creep to keep trying to mark his territory all over you, you might want to look a little less like you’re trying to phase out that window.” 

There was nothing for a long moment, before hoodie seemed to tremble violently once, whole frame shaking before he uncurled away from the window. He was still slouched, still cast mostly into obscurity behind his hood, but he leaned ever so slightly in Andrews direction. 

Andrew didn’t need to turn around to know the eyes boring into the back of his head had tracked hoodies movement too. 

“Pretend for the remainder of this ride that we’re dating. Yes or no?” Andrew said, pitched low. He hesitated a second before holding his hand palm up on the seat between them. 

“You can hold my hand to sell it if you want.” 

There was a startled flinch and Andrew forced himself to keep still when every instinct was telling him to get up and go back to his own seat. He had no business being here, doing what? Trying to be the protector? Andrew wasn’t a protector, not the type people seemed to want any way. 

Hoodies hands were still folded into his sleeves and he pulled them further away, slow like he was trying to hide the action. Trying not to be seen as unwilling, Andrew noted. 

“No is no.” He snapped but managed to keep it within only their ear shot. “If you don’t want my help then I don't care. I’m not going to force it on you.” 

Something about his words seemed to startle hoodie, for he didn’t so much as flinch as come to attention, body twisting a little more towards Andrew. He had the uncomfortable feeling of being looked at, studied, a feeling that always left him feeling like he needed to take a shower or three. 

He refused to say anything else. His offer, he decided, had been presented. If hoodie chose not to take it; well next time he could take on creep on his own. It was more effort than Andrew was willing to give to a stranger. He ignored the voice in his head telling him he’d already spent more effort on a stranger than he’d ever allowed before. The voices in his head always sounded a lot like Bee. 

He'd already braced his body to stand when hoodie suddenly shifted, edging himself closer to Andrew the way one might slide themselves up to a tiger. Like they expected they were about to get hurt. 

“Not my hand.” Hoodie said and if his voice was any quieter Andrew wouldn’t have caught the words. His voice was rough, grainy and painful. It barely sounded like a voice at all. It sounded like dissuse. Or abuse. 

“But…” Andrew prompted because he could hear the word hanging heavy between them. He wasn’t sure if the hoodie would find a way to it on his own with the way he was tucking his chin even further into his chest. 

“You can,” Hoodie mumbled before sighing. It sounded like it hurt. “You can put your arm on my shoulder?”

Andrew didn’t like suggestions that sounded like questions. 

“Until he leaves, or you do. Yes or no?” 

“Yeah.” 

Andrew hadn’t allowed himself physical contact with another man save for the space needed to get them off in years. Distance was a necessary weapon that Andrew wielded to protect himself. His walls were thick for a reason, his space sacred for the sake of what little sanity he had managed to cling on to with bloody fingers. None of that meant this had to mean anything. It wasn’t a break through, it wasn’t a step forward. It was a one time concession that allowed him his good deed for the day. He’d have something positive to tell Bee at least. What a riveting change of pace. 

Hoodie shuddered when Andrew laid his arm over the back of his shoulders but he wasn’t surprised by the reaction. The knee jerk desire to pull away was almost startling in it’s intensity but Andrew grit his teeth through it. He had been given permission. He was not like the monsters he had out run and he wouldn’t let this man make him feel like he was. 

There was little to be felt through the thickness of hoodies...well, hoodie. He wasn’t broad, but he was thin. Maybe a little too thin, but it was hard to judge. Only with his arm pressed against him could Andrew tell that this man apparently never stopped trembling. It was a constant vibration through him, a nervous energy that made Andrews skin ache. 

He didn’t comment, didn’t say anything as the bus continued its rambling route. It seemed longer than the day before, like time was a flexible thing and had this morning decided to slide past with glacial speed. The morning outside was layered with a soft fog, something that Andrew had found annoying when he’d left his dorm but found oddly acceptable on the outside of the bus. 

It wasn’t until the man at his side seemed to soften the smallest amount, a pinprick sized amount of tension leaving him, that Andrew realised what his hand was doing. The fabric of the man's hoodie was soft under his thumb, the type of softness that came from multiple wears and washes. It snagged on every upwards stroke of Andrews thumb on the rough skin there but in the few seconds before he became fully aware, there was something oddly stilling about the repetitiveness of making such a motion. 

The stillness snapped as he tensed, halting the movement all together. His insides recoiled. That hadn’t been what he had asked and it wasn’t what hoodie had agreed to. He was taking. Taking liberties and taking from him and--

“You can. Do that, I mean.” Hoodie mumbled, shrugging the shoulder Andrew had been stroking almost nervously. “Yes? If you want?” 

There was something vicious rising in Andrews throat, the need to push away and to curl into himself. Close ranks. Self protect. 

“I don’t want anything.” He rebuffed, voice carefully devoid of anything. 

“Oh.” The man made the small noise more in the back of his throat than as actual words. The small tension Andrew had unknowingly managed to dispel returned, locking his shoulders tight as he hunched. 

Andrew didn’t regret anything, either. Sometimes Andrew told more lies to himself than he did to other people. 

He barely registered the bus slowing down but the looming shadow of creep sliding past them was met with a disinterested look from Andrew and nothing from beneath hoodies protective layers. 

“Better luck next time.” Andrew mocked, tapping his temple once with two fingers and internally rolling his eyes at the murderous glare creep attempted to throw him. 

“Fucker.” He muttered under his breath and startled a little when hoodie let out what might have been a laugh if it didn’t sound like there was glass trying to break out of his throat instead. 

It seemed that the only thing time needed to speed up was the absence of creeps ego weighing the bus down. Hoodies stop was two before Andrews, a fact he hadn’t the inclination to notice the day before either. They weren’t at the college yet, just a clustered strip of small independants stores and coffee shops. Andrew had been able to procure his coveted warm donuts a few blocks down the way. Maybe hoodie worked somewhere in the area. Andrew didn’t care enough to ask. 

He slid his arm away and ignored the way hoodie seemed to shudder at the sensation as he stood and made to leave for his place back at the rear. 

“Thank you?” 

Andrew turned back round and was promptly annoyed when he realised how much taller hoodie actually was than him. His slouching might be a good thing. Andrews arm would likely have fallen to sleep if he’d had to throw it over hoodies actual shoulder height. 

“Is that a question or a statement?” Andrew arched an eyebrow at him. 

Hoodie didn’t answer, just pulled once on his sleeves and made for the doorway. Andrew didn’t know what made him watch the man’s retreat. His stride was small, diminutive. Everything about his gait trying to make himself look less than he was. It was nauseating. It was interesting. 

At least Andrew’s moment of pondering was rewarded. When hoodie paused just as he reached the door, when he turned back to Andrew and his hood slipped back the tiniest amount, well, at least Andrew had a better name for him now than hoodie. 

Green eyes. 

…

It shouldn’t have become a routine.. No, what it should have been is never a thing that happened the first time. Andrew had protocols and rules that allowed him to do something that closely resembled living. Charity wasn’t a part of those protocols. 

He didn’t see green eyes the next morning. That didn’t mean a damn thing to him. He didn’t see creep either but that mattered least to him than anything. He wasn’t disappointed when he looked up at green eyes stop to no alighting passenger and even if he had allowed himself to feel such a futile and wasteful sentiment, it would only be because he had lost a chance to see if the way he remembered those eyes was real. 

Green eyes. Eyes framed by dark circles and weighed down by thick lashes hooded by heavy lids. Tired eyes. Broken eyes. Eyes crying out. Eyes hidden by a fear thick enough it dulled the colour. Green eyes like the last leaves in winter, reaching, reaching, reaching for just the tiniest hint of sun. 

No, he wasn’t disappointed. 

He had not the slightest of care when he couldn’t stop himself from peering up the third day and finding green eyes shuffling towards the front. It did nothing to his chest when those eyes looked up, searching, maybe even hoping. People didn’t hope for Andrew. People hoped to be rid of Andrew and Andrew hoped to be rid of people. 

Green eyes stared and then seemed to catch himself, gaze darting around the bus like danger was going to spring on him at any second. Andrew could understand the feeling. The ever present sleeves were pulled tight over his hands and his hood swamped his features. His steps faltered as the bus restarted and he started to inch towards his seat. Andrew had no intention of following, of allowing his momentary bout of altruism to be anything more than a one time experiment. 

“I don’t think his pride survived the humiliation. That or his man bun finally cut circulation to that one lonely brain cell.” 

Green eyes hesitated, looking back round at Andrew. Andrew dug his nails into the skin of his palms. 

“It’s easier to see threats from the high ground.” Andrew offered into the empty space of the bus between them before forcing himself to slump back in his seat, crossing his arms across his chest. “Haven’t you ever seen a documentary?”

Green eyes shuffled his feet, looking once at his usual seat and then back up at Andrew. When he took a step forward, Andrew swore he could feel the air in the bus shift. 

“You want me to sit with you?”

If it was possible, his voice sounded even rougher than before. 

Andrew scoffed. “I don’t want--”

“Anything.” Green eyes finished for him, stopping just out of reach of Andrew and holding his hands close to his middle. 

“Sorry.” He added on quickly. 

Andrew stared up at him and waited. Waited for the itch of another person in his vicinity to force himself to drive them away. He waited for the weight of finding words to settle across his shoulders like a physical thing. He waited. 

“Are you looking for an invitation? You won’t get one.” Andrew said. 

“Can I sit?” Green eyes asked, eyeing the space next to Andrew and then, “Yes or no?” 

Huh, Andrew thought. That’s a first, Andrew thought. I hate him, Andrew thought. 

“Yes.” Andrew said.

He didn’t watch as the other man settled into the space next to him, didn’t allow himself to study the careful way he held himself and the tension he carried. He definitely didn’t study the bruise like quality to his eyes and wonder if sleep was as elusive to him as it was to Andrew. 

“I do.” Green eyes mumbled, the words seeming to come out of him on autopilot for he flicked a nervous glance at Andrew after.

Andrew waited a beat. “Do what?”

“Watch documentaries.”

“It was sarcastic.” 

Green eyes fidgeted in his seat, hooking one long leg up under him to turn himself into Andrews side. 

“I like history,” He explained, voice cracking but more animated than anything he had said yet. “I watched one last night about British castles and then spent three hours comparing them to other parts of the world .”

That explained the insomniatic facade. 

“Riveting.” He said flatly but allowed his body to lean in the man's direction all the same. 

“Did you know…” Green eyes started and there were facts and figures and names Andrew didn’t care about but would be cursed to forever remember. Andrew couldn’t help but study the man as he spoke, the slow way he started to stumble less over words as he talked. His voice was potentially the most grating thing Andrew had heard and he’d live with Nicky briefly, but; but even though he couldn’t see his face, Andrew recognised the sound of someone forced to stay silent finally exercising the desire to be heard. 

He refused to allow himself to say anything else that trip, but he never once looked away. 

…

If asked, Andrew was sure Bee would tell him his now forming habit of leaving for school earlier and leaving himself more time, more freedom, was a good thing. That his almost daily trip to his favourite coffee shop was an act of self care. He’d tell her he just went for the coffee and the myriad of extras they let him pile on. 

The Foxhole was a small thing, nestled on the corner of a street and almost dwarfed by the surrounding store fronts. Andrew didn’t know the name of the owner but his gruff voice was often heard yelling across the store at his staff. Some of Andrews' classmates worked there though he refused to do more than give his order and leave on the days they crossed paths. 

Most mornings he’d take his drink to go. Most mornings, he had nothing to fill his mind but a vague countdown to his next class or, on occasion, a topic he might discuss with Renee. Some mornings he’d started to take his drink on a looping wander around the streets to think. 

He would not call it daydreaming because he didn’t let himself do such a mundane thing. Daydreaming was pointless. Daydreaming could lead him down paths his brain apparently had no guilt taking him down. Thinking about green eyes felt like something to be guilty about. 

He was sure it was simply the mystery, the invitation for something to solve that had stuck the man in his head. The total lack of a complete picture irked him. Only those eyes stuck themselves out in his memory and in the moments he allowed himself, as he dipped his finger in and out of the whipped cream melting from his cup, he wondered what the whole picture might look like. 

…

“Do you own something that fits you?” Andrew caved on the third day of green eyes invading his personal row on the bus. Not that Andrew was keeping track. 

Green eyes had spent most of those days telling Andrew about the latest historical event he was obsessed with but little else. His interest seemed almost a safety net. Or maybe no one else was willing to listen to it. 

He asked every one of the three times before sitting down next to Andrew, an entire seat between them but turned towards Andrew like a flower seeking the sun. Andrew despised it. His voice still grated like sandpaper coming from his throat but once or twice, he did something besides talk barely louder than breath. 

“It's my dads.” Green eyes said, bringing his covered hands up to his face almost like he was going to inhale before dropping them back down. Andrew hadn’t seen so much as an inch of one finger the whole week. It made the skin under his armbands flare for attention. 

“Did no one teach him it’s rude to have a hood up indoors too? Tragic.” 

There was almost a scoff in return.

If Andrew was honest with himself, a notion that he had only accepted possible in recent years and only indulged in on occasion, he was curious. Even this close, green eyes rarely lifted his head enough for Andrew to see much more than a glimpse of features. Still hunched himself over so most but forest green was thrown into shadow. 

“I didn’t have any when I moved here.” Green eyes admitted. “Still don’t.” 

“When I first moved in with my cousin I had to wear his socks for a month until we could buy more. They had animals on them. It was torturous.” 

That had green eyes raising his head just a litte, tilting so Andrew got a glimpse of a strong jaw. 

“Why did you tell me that?” 

“Why did you?”

“You asked.”

Andrew flicked his hand in a circular motion. “You went, I went. Full circles and all.” 

“I,” Green eyes stuttered and then closed his mouth. He did that a lot, filtered his words, cut himself off. It was trained. He’d clench his hands under his sleeves everytime, press his knees closer together. Braced. Someone had taught him to hold his tongue. It wasn’t Andrews business to unbury someone’s spine for them. 

“Take your hood down, yes or no?” He said it bored. He said it with no inflection and with little interest. It wasn’t an order, it wasn’t a suggestion. 

“Why?” Green eyes asked and there was such confusion in his voice that almost hid the fear. 

Green eyes was afraid to be seen. Andrew wanted to tell him that being seen wasn’t the terrifying part. Being known was. Andrew had no interest in knowing him. 

“Do or don’t. Yes or no. Do you know how to make a choice?” 

“Of course I do.” Green eyes snapped and oh, so there was something underneath it all. 

Andrew stayed silent, looking away and leaned his head back against his seat. Bus seats left little to be desired in terms of comfort but Andrew had caught cat naps in worse places. Not that he would sleep here, not that he could. Still, he made a show of stretching his legs and folding his hands, counting the stains on the ceiling in his head. 

A huff. A shuffle. An impatient and irritated crossing and recrossing of legs. Green eyes pressed the makeshift mittens of hands over his eyes and sighed. Andrew wondered if it hurt, suppressing all that temper. He wondered why it didn’t show in his own defence. 

He didn’t let his gaze waver when he caught green eyes reach for his hood, somehow still not dislodging the covering of his hands. That was a question Andrew couldn’t ask about. The trade required was not one he was willing to part with. The hood came down with a short shove and a loud exhale of air. He was sure it was meant to sound irritated. All Andrew heard was the sound of one layer of armour clanging to the bus floor. 

He refused to turn and look no matter how curious he was. 

“Are you not even going to look?”

“No.” Andrew replied simply. 

A beat of silence, then,

“Well why not?” 

“I asked you if you’d put it down, not if I could look.”

That seemed to stump the other man for a handful of minutes. There was a lot of twitching and shuffling, a lot of reaching up to his hair. 

“Why would you ask if you didn’t want to see?”

To see if you would. To see if you even could. 

“I don’t want--”

“Anything.” Green eyes finished, again. It was not a habit Andrew wanted to continue. 

“You can, if you _want_.” The want was stressed mockingly, a jab at Andrew that he refused to rise to. It wasn’t long until they would separate, Andrew to class and green eyes to wherever it was he went. Andrew didn’t care enough to find out. 

It would be sunny today. Andrew hated the way the light was already starting to beat against his eyes. He’d left his good sunglasses in Germany on his last visit to Nicky and he refused to ask for him to post them to him. 

He didn’t sigh.

“Yes or no?”

“Yes.” Green eyes answered immediately. 

He was ridiculously attractive. Of fucking course he was. A strong jaw gave way to high cheekbones and a perfectly sloped nose. He was darker than Andrew. The smallest sliver of black hair he had seen before now gave way to a full head of locks, longer on top and shorter on the sides but grown out, like he’d used to style it but had stopped. 

His eyes, those green eyes. They were so very green. They were so very afraid. 

He looked terrified, body as tense as the first time Andrew had let himself look. Coiled, waiting, braced for a reaction. It was written in every inch of his body language that he expected a negative one. 

“You have terrible hood hair.” Andrew said disinterestedly. 

A startled laugh burst from green eyes and Andrew startled at the flare of something in his chest at that sound. It was as brutally ruined as his voice remained but it was also bright, like sunshine behind storm clouds, the suggestion of a clearer day. 

He also sounded relieved. 

“Ask me something.” His hands ticked with tension as they started to roll to a stop at green eyes destination.

Green eyes stood, shouldering his bag and Andrew concentrated on the faded sticker attached instead of the curious, almost calculating tilt of green eyes head. It looked like a school emblem, old and nearly up on the corners. 

“Reciprocation,” Green eyes said thoughtfully and started down the bus only to pause a few steps away. 

“What’s your name?”

Andrew rolled his eyes. “How dull.”

Green eyes shrugged, reaching up to pull his hood back firmly over his profile. Andrew would be disappointed to see it once again hidden if he allowed himself to be disappointed. 

Andrew crossed his arms and turned his face to look out the window.

“Andrew.” He gritted out just as green eyes steps started to walk away. They didn’t pause and Andrew refused to turn and see if he had been heard. It itched and gnawed at him the entire rest of the day, that he didn’t have a name in return. 

…

Sometimes, Andrew got no sleep. Sometimes, the night time hours found him wandering his miniscule dorm room like some kind of spector, chasing ghosts from corners and trying to outpace his memories with repetitive steps. Sometimes, Andrew could only lay there as his ghosts swarmed him. 

The weight that morning wasn’t so heavy that he couldn’t drag himself from his bed, but it was enough. On days like these the sheer effort of existing felt less like survival and more like punishment. He poured himself sugary cereal for breakfast, trying to kick start a routine that Bee has helped him make. Simple tasks to check off, a simple timeline to pull him through the day, and sometimes it worked. 

He ate one bite of his cereal, gagged, and threw the rest down the sink. 

He only had two classes that day and one of them wasn’t mandatory. The other relied so heavily on their textbooks that Andrew could teach the subject to himself without the professor. Neither were interesting. He could crawl back into bed and write the whole day off, start again tomorrow. He could call Bee later, maybe. 

The sun was just rising over the top of his street when he pulled back the curtain, looking, maybe, for some sort of sign that he should do just that. Spontaneous fires maybe, a brewing storm; but the sky was clear, unburdened. 

Would green eyes be disappointed if Andrew wasn’t there?

The thought came to him unbidden and he yanked the curtain closed. Irritation came first and then a fledgling sensation of anger when he noted that it was the strongest thing he had felt all morning. 

He didn’t owe green eyes anything. What did he care whether his absence was noticed or not? Creep hadn’t shown his face on the bus since that second day so Andrew wasn’t even sure why he was still entertaining the intrusions into his commute. They admittedly made them more interesting. Green eyes was interesting. 

There was something more there, that much Andrew was sure of. The doe eyed cowardice wasn’t a lie but it also wasn’t all there was. It was learnt, he could tell. Andrew knew what it looked like when you put a mask on for the world, when you kept your head down and hoped the bad things around you wouldn’t notice you. Maybe if you kept quiet then life might not be good, but it might be safe. 

Bee told him he had a large heart. Andrew told her she was full of shit. The thought of green eyes on the bus alone though… 

Maybe getting dressed and forcing himself out the front door was an act of punishment. Maybe trudging the short walk to the bus stop just to see one attractive man was simply human. 

His fingers itched for a cigarette as he sat at the back of the bus, a habit he had kicked years ago but still found lying in wait at the skin of the tips of his fingers. He refused to admit that the low level hum of anticipation was chasing if not all then some of the ghosts flitting at the edge of his brain. When the bus slowed and the doors slid open, that anticipation flared into a bone deep relief. Andrew felt all at once sick with it. 

Green eyes entered the bus the same way he always did. Head down, hands buried and curled into the front of an oversized sweater. His steps were careful as his posture bent in every way to appear smaller than he was, except...except his hood was down. 

An almost painful desperation filled Andrew in the few seconds it took for green eyes to look up the aisle at him, for their gazes to meet and for the tiniest hint of something to tug at the corner of green eyes mouth. He wanted, needed with a sudden and disconcerting clarity to know who this man he had been sharing his journeys with was. 

Andrew curled his fingers into the edge of his seat and clung as he was approached, almost tilting off with how far he was leaning forwards, reaching, reaching. Confusion started to furrow green eyes face as he got close enough to see something in Andrews own expression and Andrew surely should have stayed in bed after all because he couldn’t for the life of him work out how to shut it down. 

“Your name.” He blurted as soon as green eyes sat next to him, voice rushing out of him with all the air he had. “What’s your name?”

Green eyes’ expression went complicated at that, a myriad of shutters opening and closing between one blink and the next and Andrew thought, _you’re hiding_. 

“I’m Kev--” 

“Kevin Day.” Someone spoke, a shadow falling over the pair of them and Andrew watched as all the colour seemed to drain from green eyes face as his attention snapped round. He flinched into himself, hands pressing tight against his stomach as he shrunk, dissolved. 

Andrew’s hands were coiled into fists before he even lifted his eyes, every cell in his body screaming _threat, threat, protect, protect._ As Andrew looked up he felt only a fierce need to put himself in front of green eyes, _Kevin_ , and the world. 

“Oh,” He said with all the disgust and contempt he could muster even as his expression slipped into a blank calm. “And who are you?”

The intruder didn’t so much as glance at Andrew, his eyes focussed on Kevin. He was tall, taller than Andrew but that was hardly an achievement. It was hardly a deterrent to Andrew either. Everything was dark about him from his eyes to his hair, to the expression on his face. 

“ _Jean._ ” Kevin’s was thin and strained. It made Andrew want to put his fist through the newcomers face. 

“We have to talk.” Jean said and Andrew didn’t appreciate the order in his tone. 

“I, you can’t...” Kevin struggled to speak. “You can’t be here.” 

“Because you ran away? Did you really think you wouldn’t be found?” Jean tilted his head at a curious angle, looking the length of Kevin up and down. His expression seemed to fall and soften the smallest amount before it was quickly shuttered over. 

“You knew he’d find you.” 

The strangled noise that burst from Kevin was the last straw. 

“Jean. Jean Valjean,” Andrew mused. His hand moved of its own accord, settling into the air above Kevin’s knee and waiting. He saw Jean track the movement but could find no will to care what this intruder was thinking. There was the smallest exhalation of a yes from Kevin, a small breathless thing that sounded desperate, pleading. Andrew let his hand settle on Kevin’s leg and glared up at Jean. 

“I don’t think he wants to talk to you. You should move along.”

“Kevin,” Jean ignored him, eyebrows raising disapprovingly. “You can’t ignore him. Your guard dog won’t help.” He sneered a little around the words. 

“I can’t see him.” Kevin managed and Andrew could feel tremors start from the bottom up. “You can’t ask me too.” 

“I am the only one who will ask. Don’t make him make you.” 

“Jean.” Kevin said softly, sadly. “You know you don’t have to listen to him anymore.”

Jean let out the most incredulous scoff.

“You know that I do.”

There was a note of resigned despair to the way Jean spoke and Andrew could feel the way Kevin twitched ever so slightly at the sound of it. Whether it was to reach our or recoil he couldn’t tell. He had the uncomfortable and irritating feeling of a conversation he couldn’t hear being said. He wondered for a fleeting second if this was how people felt when his family spoke german to each other. Excluded, clueless, powerless. 

Here were two people that clearly had history. And then there was Andrew. 

“Kevin,” There was no disguising the irritation in his tone, “Care to tell me what we’re talking about.”

The look Jean gave him when he finally turned to him was all venom. He looked at Andrew like he was small, like he was something dirty he had stepped in. Andrew would know, he’d been on the receiving end of that look for the most part of his childhood. 

“It is none of your business.”

“Jean.” Kevin said and Andrew could feel him tense under his hand. “He’s my friend.” 

It was the strongest that Andrew had ever heard the other man sound and it almost transformed his voice for just a speck of a moment. The sound alone did something to Andrew he didn’t have the time to let himself focus on. 

Jean and Kevin stared at each other for a long moment before Jean seemed to deflate, his whole body sagging in a way so similar to Kevin. He looked every inch tired. 

“He knows where you are now.”

Kevin swallowed audibly. “I know.” 

It was fucking cryptic and Andrew hated it. He hated this stranger and he hated this other man who somehow wasn’t a stranger anymore. 

Jean left the bus with the same quiet he had used to get on to it. Gone between one roll of the tires and the next. The second the doors closed on the sliding doors Kevin let out a breath that sounded like it took every bit of air from him. It took Andrew a second to calm his nerves still alight with the need to protect to notice that no intake of air followed. 

“Hey.” Andrew said, swivelling fully in his seat to face Kevin properly. “Stop it.” 

When Kevin did nothing in response but squeeze his shut and wheeze painfully Andrew tightened the hold he still had the other man’s knee. 

“Kevin, breathe in.” 

Kevin did not breathe in. Andrew’s brow furrowed in both concern and confusion. What was this man’s story, that the previous interaction was sending him into full blown panic? His thumb moved hesitantly then more surely to swipe small, soft circles into the fabric of Kevin’s trousers. He was vividly reminded of that first day, arm slung over his shoulder and tracing patterns there, the way Kevin had slowly seemed to melt under the small attention. 

“Breathe.” Andrew repeated, taking a long exaggerated breath. “It’s over. You’re okay. I won’t let anyone hurt you. I promise.” The words came to him on autopilot but they were startingly, shockingly, fiercely true. He placed his free hand in front of Kevin’s face, not touching but hovering. 

There was a hitch in the rapid rate of Kevin’s breathing before he lifted his head just enough to follow his arm up and look at Andrew through fear clouded eyes. 

“Breathe in for three,” Andrew instructed him, moving his hand back and counting up with his fingers. “One, two, three.” Kevin followed his instructions with a painful grimace that Andrew knew all too well. The deep searing ache of trying to force your lungs to work was something he had become intimately familiar with. 

“Breathe out slow.” 

The release of breath wasn’t slow at all but Andrew counted down on his fingers again, eyes locked with Kevins as he followed, syncing his lungs to Andrew’s care. His eyes were so green, so wide and open and trusting. Andrew wasn’t supposed to inspire trust in other people but he wanted it from this man all the same. 

Fear turned into horror when Kevin slowly started to calm and his eyes darted away from Andrew quickly, ashamed. Andrew wanted to tell him to stop being stupid. He wanted to tell him it was okay to react to the things he felt. He wanted to demand to know every little secret Kevin was keeping buried, every skeleton in his closet and every nightmare. 

Kevin stood so violently quick when the bus pulled up to his stop that Andrews hand was all but shoved away. He thought for a moment that Kevin would leave without a look back. He knew with no doubt at that moment that if that happened, he would never see the other man again. He shouldn’t care about that. He should welcome that. This, this feeling of giving a damn, of wanting, it was only going to lead him to bad places. Andrew didn’t get to keep good things. He didn’t even know if Kevin was a good thing. He was damaged, that much was obvious. Andrew was damaged too.

What was even more obvious was that he was hiding. Hiding himself and hiding where he’d come from. There was something dark and vile hidden here and Andrew, he should let him go before he got tangled up in it. 

Except... except when Kevin had gotten on the bus not a handful of minutes ago, he had seen a glimpse of something so bright that Andrew had momentarily been blinded by it. 

He should let him walk away but--

“Kevin.” He said it quietly. He said it in a voice softer than he had used for years. 

Kevin rocked to a stop like a dog coming to the end of his leash, like his string had been tugged on and Andrew was the one holding the other end. His frame still shook with the aftershocks of panic and that seemed to double before he turned back around. 

“Come with me?” Kevin asked weakly and Andrew couldn’t do anything else but follow. 

…

Here is what Andrew knew. 

Green eyes was really Kevin Day was really a completely fucking bad idea. 

Here’s what he didn’t know. 

Why the urge to follow Kevin wherever the hell he was going was so strong in his stomach that he felt sick with it. 

Kevin walked down the street the same way he walked onto the bus those first days. With his head bent down and his body pulled into itself. Andrew walked a step behind him and tried to ignore the urge to have his hand on Kevin again, to ground the other man with him. 

He didn’t look up from cataloguing the sloped curve of Kevin’s back until the man came to an abrupt stop, turning back to look at Andrew almost sheepishly. 

“We can go somewhere else if you want, but I work here so…” Kevin trailed off. 

Andrew looked up at the store he had been led to and if he were the type to, he might have laughed. The Foxhole coffee shop sat there on its corner in all it’s orange glory. 

“I’ve never seen you here.” 

Kevin frowned. “You come here?”

“Most days before my classes.” 

“I work in the back mostly.” Kevin admitted in a voice that for some reason sounded embarrassed. 

When Andrew started towards the door Kevin jumped to follow, getting in front of Andrew to open it. It was completely irritating and not at all charming. The rich scent of coffee hit him immediately as they entered and Andrew was thankful as always for the warmth the shop always exuded. It was as quiet as it usually was, only a few people taking up the seats and Andrew headed toward his preferred nook automatically, raising an eyebrow when Kevin seemed to hesitate in following. 

“I have questions.” Andrew said and Kevin’s shoulders tensed all the way up to his ears. Andrew rolled his eyes. 

“You don’t have to answer them.”

“And if I want to?” Kevin said, like a question, face furrowed.. 

Andrew flopped down in his seat with more force than necessary and folded his arms. 

“Coffee first.” 

“Right!” Kevin spun around in a quick half circle, taking a couple of hurried steps before skidding to a pause and coming back. 

“What do you drink?”

“Double chocolate frappe, three pumps caramel syrup, three pumps vanilla, whipped cream.”

A look akin to horror slowly spread over Kevin’s face. 

“Are you serious?” 

“Did I stutter?”

“But, but,” Kevin’s hands flapped around in front of him in furious circles, sleeves hanging, his voice going high and his eyes wide. “Do you have any idea how much sugar is in that? How bad that is for you? I know you’re young but diabetes is a thing and there’s no way drinking that is good for your teeth! Can you even taste the coffee? Do you get that everytime? I can’t believe they would keep letting you--”

“Kevin.” Andrew interrupted and Kevin came to a halt immediately. Andrew leaned back in his seat and pointed one finger up at him. 

“I don’t think i’ve heard you speak so much at once before when it wasn’t about history. If I knew this is what I was missing out on I might not have followed you here.” 

Andrew realised the mistake of his words almost the moment they made their way out of his mouth as Kevin seemed to re shrink, eyes shuttering. 

“I, it’s just,” He stuttered. 

“Kevin,” Andrew sighed and then stopped, unsure of what he was planning on following with. He wasn’t used to having to filter his words or mind their meaning. Andrew spoke and he didn’t particularly care how it was received. Somehow he found he cared that Kevin couldn’t tell when Andrew was teasing him. 

Kevin stayed, waiting and silent and Andrew hated that a little too. 

“Drinks.” He said in the end and tried not to care at the dejected way Kevin walked off to the counter. 

He knew he should call Bee, which was a tell tale clue that there was something important he needed help to work through. His instinct even after moving away was still to turn to her for all the things he couldn’t find a way to understand about the way he felt. It wasn’t a crutch that had come easy for him to learn but Bee was ever persistent and ever patient. A handful of years ago and Andrew might never have set foot in this coffee shop. If not for the work Bee had helped him put in, he likely would have pushed until Kevin ran from him the first time he joined the back of the bus. 

“I didn’t know if you wanted sprinkles, so I got them.” Kevin offered smally as he reapproached the table, setting their mugs down carefully. A floral scent that made Andrew want to sneeze wafted from Kevins and he grimaced at it. 

“Chamomile.” Kevin explained as he sat opposite, reaching forwards to wrap sleeved hands around the mug. “Good for anxiety apparently.” He coughed weakly and grimaced like he had said too much. 

“Why do you do that?” Andrew frowned down at the cradled mug. 

“Do what?” 

“You’re not really shy or quiet.” Andrew carried on without elaborating on his question. “You’re actually pretty incessant if you get going.” 

“I don’t mean to.” Kevin mumbled quietly, sliding his mug closer across the table as if to protect himself. 

Andrew ground his teeth together hard. “You filter yourself.” 

“I don’t--”

“Who was the man on the bus?” 

Kevin’s mouth closed slowly and every line of him filled with tension, which was almost impressive considering he hadn’t looked anything but tense since Andrew had talked him out of his panic attack. Andrew reached forwards and swiped a finger through the whipped cream of his drink and popped it into his mouth, content to wait Kevin out while he seemed to flounder over the question. He didn’t count on the way Kevins eyes followed the movement though, sharpening as Andrew curled his tongue over the digit and sucked it clean. Interesting. He did it again, for testing purposes and then let a small smirk flit across his mouth. 

“The man?”

Kevin jumped so hard his knee rattled the table with a loud clang. 

“Jean.” He said quickly, flushing a little on the tops of his cheeks before sobering. “Jean Moreau.” 

“Friend of yours?” 

Kevin hesitated. “I don’t know.” 

“He didn’t seem friendly.” 

“It’s complicated.” 

Andrew was no stranger to complicated relationships. 

“Why are you so afraid of him?”

Kevin actually looked startled by that, his face filling with confusion. “I’m not afraid of Jean.” 

Andrew didn’t miss the way he emphasised Jean’s name and took a slow sip of his drink, watching Kevin over the rim. The other man fidgeted, gulping his own drink and burning his tongue if the scowl was any indication. 

“You don’t have to tell me anything.” He said each word slowly, carefully and clearly, setting his mug back down. “I won’t ask if you don’t want me to ask. You won’t answer if you do not want to answer. You owe me nothing and I will not take anything you do not want to give. Do you believe me?” 

The air around them seemed to still as Kevin looked up at him with an expression Andrew both hated and needed. Calculation. Studying. Kevin’s eyes roamed over his face as if he was trying to find the lie in his words and Andrew hated how he looked at him and hated how it was the response he had needed. It was the only way he could believe Kevin when his face cleared of trepidation and he nodded his head. 

“I do.” 

“Who was Jean talking about? Who wants to see you?” 

Kevin’s lips thinned and he blinked his eyes hard but when he spoke it wasn’t the whispers Andrew had come to know. 

“My step brother. Riko.” Saying the name sent a shudder through Kevin that Andrew could see him try to repress. It seemed almost habitual and Andrew didn’t need to ask to know that Riko was not someone who had been kind to him. 

“What does he want?” 

Kevin toyed with the edges of his sleeves. “To see me, I guess.” 

“You don’t want to see him?” 

“He’s in prison.”

It wasn’t, Andrew noted, really an answer to his question. 

“They allow visitors in prison, I think. They did when I was in juvie, I assume it’s similar.” 

Kevin’s eyes narrowed at the information and Andrew stared back at him impassively. He wasn’t ashamed of his past and the answers Kevin was providing required reciporaction. This tidbit of his life was almost insignificant, almost nothing, except Andrew rarely gave anyone anything. Giving Kevin the fact and letting him digest it however he wanted was somehow not as awful as he might have thought. 

When Kevin simply took it, filed it away and moved past it, Andrew knew that he might just not get this man out from under his skin. 

“Riko’s in prison,” Kevin said at length, looking at Andrew like he thought he might be about to be punished, “because I put him there.”

And wasn’t that just so very _interesting_. 

“What did he do to you?” 

Andrew watched as Kevin slowly lifted his hands and placed them on the table between them, still obscured by his sleeves but the most out in the open Andrew had seen them. 

He flicked his gaze up to green and refused to look back down. 

“You don’t have to show me.”

“I know.” Kevin nodded, almost more to himself but then once more stronger. “I want to. I’ve been...hiding them, hiding myself. But I trust you.”

The weight of that statement made Andrew feel suffocated. 

“You barely know me.”

“You barely know me.”

Andrew scoffed at his words being parroted back to him and shoved his own hands under his thighs, pressing them down where they could harm neither him nor Kevin. 

“Sharing a bus ride a few minutes a day does not a friendship make.” 

He ignored the voice in his head that told him he was wrong. That those bus rides had spawned something even if he wasn’t willing to put a name to it. Andrew was, on his best days, self destructive; suicidal wasn’t a habit he wanted to pick back up on. 

“You’ve been protecting me.” Kevin said like it wasn’t a concept more important than life to Andrew. The knee jerk reaction to push back made his words biting. 

“I told some pervert to fuck off.”

“You know the one good thing about trying to be unseen?” Kevin said suddenly softer, leaning forwards over his own hands and staring at Andrew unflinchingly with his green, green eyes. “You get to see everything else.” 

Andrews smirk was entirely vicious. “And what do you see oh tall one?”

“You.”

One little word should not be enough to stall Andrew but it did, taking him completely by surprise in a way he was unfamiliar and unhappy with in equal measure. Kevin didn’t give him anytime to react to his words, leaning back and tugging on his sleeves all in one movement. The fabric rolled up his arms and gave way to tanned skin and--

Andrew couldn’t have stopped the low growl that rumbled through his chest if he had tried. Criss crossing the back of Kevin’s left hand was a patchwork of scars, white and puckered against his skin. Some were thick slices and others were thin trailing lines but the combined hatching filled most of the area, reaching down to join knuckles that had clearly been broken. The injury had been extensive and painful, brutal. 

“Riko wasn’t always a good person.” Kevin started roughly but calmly. “It wasn’t the first time he had hurt me but it was the worst. He got jealous, about a lot of things.” His fingers twitched on the table with a tremor and Andrew moved his hands up next to them without thought, not touching him, but resting them palm down next to them. It seemed, for some reason, to help. 

“You know what did it, in the end?” Kevin continued. “I got invited to a party and he didn’t. It’s so stupid, isn’t it? He wouldn’t have wanted to go any way. It was hosted by one of my friends in my history class. I guess it was the principle of it or something. I would have brought him if he’d asked, of course I would have. When I got home that night he was waiting for me with…” Kevin’s words stuttered a little at the memory but he shook his head at the slight lift of Andrews hand, an offering. 

“He was waiting in my room. Just standing there in the dark with one of my old trophies in his hands. For a second I thought that was the most painful thing I’d ever felt, having that slammed against my skull. Then he stood on my hand. Over and over and over and over and—“

Andrew stood and was round the table in seconds, not giving a thought to anyone else in the shop around them. He pressed a palm against the back of man’s head and pushed it down between his knees, feeling an answering wave of sickness as Kevin’s whole body shook even as he carried on talking. 

“He tried saying I came home drunk, that I had an accident and got hurt and he had tried to help me. That I was confused and made the whole thing up. That I was the one jealous of him. It was kind of funny. I hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol until after what he did to me.” He snorted wetly. “He’d been angry with me for a while, ever since I found the letter.”

Finding his voice was near impossible through the layer of anger and helplessness. 

“Letter?”

“The one my mom wrote telling Wymack he was my dad.” Kevin leaned back up into Andrews hand enough to gesture around the shop. “This is his place. I found that letter and I thought if I showed Riko he would be happy for me.” Kevin paused and looked pained. “I didn’t want to leave him. He was my brother and I--I just wanted to know who my dad was. But he didn’t believe me. He was obsessed with the idea that I was going to run away from him.” 

“I bet it kills him you ended up here because of him.” It could have been the wrong thing to say but Kevin only let out a laugh that sounded both surprised and pained, it breaking at the end into a whimper even as his lungs finally took in one long breath. 

“Andrew?” He asked after a moment and he sounded so unsure but so hopeful that Andrew almost wanted to run, escape before this all got too far. Andrew was not a coward yet his heart still beat like a bird desperately charging against the inside of a cage. 

“Kevin.”

“Can you hold my hand?” 

Every inch of Andrew froze. 

“You don’t have to.” Kevin immediately back tracked, his eyes going even more wide and leaning away from Andrew.

“Kevin.” Andrew said with no real idea of how to turn the name into a sentence.

“”It was a stupid idea.” Kevin berated himself, walls slamming up.

“ _Kevin_.” Andrew slid his hand away from the man and stood, stomach doing knots as Kevin turned to follow the movement with all the fear of a person who’d learnt that a moving body was a dangerous one. 

Andrew sighed, and, sinking said, “Kevin.” holding out his hand and willing all his thoughts quiet as Kevin looked up at him like he was being offered something precious. Maybe he was. Andrew had certainly never offered it to anyone before.

Kevin’s hand was warm and rough, shaking but grip large and surrounding. Andrew could feel the tell tale bumps and ridges of scarred tissue and felt a near animalistic sense of anger that he crushed down. 

Kevin opened his mouth to say something, to utter some sort of sentiments that Andrew was near certain he wasn’t capable of hearing. He tugged once on Kevin’s hand and used the momentum to pull the taller man to his feet. 

“Come on. We’re going for a walk.” 

…

There wasn’t any real reason to keep a hold of Kevin’s hand as they exited the shop, no reason to stay intertwined as Andrew started off down the street and Kevin obediently followed. There was no reason at all for him to be obedient. Yet he was; falling in to step next to Andrew like it was something they had done a hundred times before. 

There was no reason, but Andrew couldn’t find the will to let go either. It was strangely okay, having Kevin in his grip and the evidence of his abuse shielded by Andrews fingers. 

“Where are we going?” Kevin asked and he had to bend down a little to be heard, his voice having dropped back down to the lower mumble Andrew was more accustomed to. It grated, how immediate the switch in the other man happened when presented with the world as a whole. 

“You’re voice.” Andrew said as he led them around a corner with a sharp pull. 

Kevin’s hand flexed once in Andrews with surprise. He wanted to turn and see what expression Kevin was making but made himself stare at the road in front of them. 

“I have nightmares.” Kevin admitted slowly. “My dad says I scream.” 

It was somehow worse than Andrew was expecting and entirely predictable with the information he now had. 

“Explains the dark circles.” He noted as an answer. It wasn’t intended as a prompt but Kevin took it as the one. Andrew wondered if no one spoke to this man. If no one sat him down and told him it was okay to talk about the things that had happened to him, the things that still ran rampant behind his closed eyes. Maybe, like Andrew, Kevin just wasn’t willing to let any of them in. 

“I can’t sleep after. Sometimes I can get two or three hours if I even manage to fall asleep.” He paused over the end of that sentence before chuckling in a way that made Andrew want to press his fingers down the man’s throat until it went away. 

“If my dad doesn’t notice me take a bottle to my room I can get maybe four hours. I guess that’s one parting gift I should thank Riko for, a ready to go coping mechanism.” 

“Shut up.” Andrew snarled, coming to a halt and wrenching his hand from Kevins just to turn on his heel and glare up at the taller man. 

“If I hear you say something as _idiotic_ as that again…” His flare of anger faded off with his words and he lowered the finger he hadn’t noticed he was pointing. If he had had the time to give it thought before his outburst exploded from him he might have expected Kevin to look afraid. 

Here was a man who had been severely and repeatedly abused, a man who trembled at the sight of strangers, who hid himself from eyes and kept everything about himself down and tucked away. He should recoil at the sight of Andrew’s anger but; but here was also a man who had laid his secrets bare to Andrew. Who saw the ease to which Andrew had wielded his weapons and seen protection and not danger. 

Kevin stood before him without an ounce of fear on his face but instead a steely look to match Andrews own. His shoulders shook but it wasn’t with anxiety but with quick sharp movements like he was shrugging a weight off of himself. 

_“I know._ ” He huffed, sounding aggravated and annoyed at himself. “My dad keeps telling me off too but I can’t--” He cursed under his breath. 

Andrew gave him a moment to breath and then used his shoulder to nudge him to carry on moving. 

“What does he want from you?” 

“Nothing.” Kevin grimaced at the expression Andrew shot him. “It’s not a thing that he wants. He _wants_ me to know that he can get to me. It doesn’t matter that he was convicted, he thinks if he snaps his fingers he has the power to take me back.” 

“He doesn’t.” 

“You don’t know him like I do. Or his family.”

“He’s a bully.”

“He’s my brother.” Kevin argued but it sounded almost automatic, robotic; an old argument or defence. “It’s not entirely his fault.”

“You shouldn’t defend your abuser.”

“His father wants nothing to do with him and his uncle is, well his uncle is where Riko learned to control his toys.”

Andrew wanted to put his knives into something. Or someone. 

“You are not his toy.”

“Aren’t I?” Kevin asked. “Sometimes…” He sighed then and it almost sounded wistful. “Sometimes I think if I just went back then everything would be okay again. If I just took it all back we could be brothers again and I could help him get better.”

“He doesn’t want help. He wants to be in control.” 

“Is control so bad?”

No, Andrew thought. Control was what had kept him alive, what had kept his walls built just high enough to not let anything get close enough to hurt him again. Everything about Kevin Day made him feel out of control. 

“You don’t get to control people.” 

“You do where I come from.” Kevin admitted. 

“It’s a good thing then,” Andrew said, bringing them to a stop once more and letting Kevin pause beside him, “That you don’t come from there anymore.” 

“I guess I don’t.” The words were said with a note of awe and a note of sadness, a confusing and inevitable mixture born from trying to grasp the good through the deluge of the bad. 

“This is your stop.” Andrew said and Kevin blinked like he was only just realising where they had wandered to. 

He frowned. “I have work.”

“In my experience, begging off work is the only advantage of working with family.” 

“But I--” Kevin started and then stopped, a sudden blush of colour spreading across his cheeks. It was endearing and the way it made his green eyes all the more brighter against it was mesmerizing. He had led the man here, had every intention of putting him on a bus with a suggestion to sleep but now the moment had come he found himself almost against the prospect. 

The urge to reach out and have Kevins hand in his own again was like ants crawling over skin. It was a rarity in Andrews life that he wasn’t waiting for the nearest available moment to rid himself of the people around him and yet, in what amounted to only a handful of time, he had not come to want to be rid of Kevin. 

“My girlfriend,” Kevin suddenly said and, strangely, looked almost guilty as his eyes flicked to and away from Andrews. “My ex girlfriend. She didn’t understand any of this. Why I needed to leave. Why I turned him in to start with.” 

“Some girlfriend.” 

Kevin frowned. “It wasn’t her fault.”

“You do that alot, excuse the people who shit on you, did you know that?” Andrew noted. 

“Yeah. ” Kevin reached up and ran a hand through his hair, ruffling the dark strands so they lay loose and fluffy against his head. Andrew wanted to run his own hands through it and see just how much of a mess it could be made. 

“Do you have a girlfriend?” Kevin asked with a nervous shuffle of his feet and Andrew let his eyes wander back down slowly. 

“Wrong team.”

“Oh,” Kevin said, then, “Do you have a boyfriend?”

“No.”

Kevin was silent for several long seconds that made the hairs on Andrews arms stand on end. It took him a moment to name the feeling as anticipation. 

“I’m bi, I think.” Kevin said each word carefully, cautiously and Andrew wondered how many bad reactions he had had to admitting that out loud, if he’d even admitted it all. 

Andrew raised an eyebrow at him. “You think?” 

“I’ve never done anything, with a guy I mean.” 

“Have you wanted to?”

The blush on Kevins cheeks darkened even further at that and Andrew watched entertained as it spread down the sides of his neck too. 

“There was a boy, once, years ago. Nathaniel. His father worked with Rikos family. He—“ A pained expression took over Kevin’s face and he tugged on his sleeves habitually. 

“He didn’t like you back?” Andrew asked when Kevin went a moment without continuing. 

“Nathaniell didn’t like anyone,” Kevin shrugged. “Said he didn’t swing. Riko always mocked him for it but I think he just hated that Nathaniel had no interest in him.” 

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t know.” Kevin admitted with a sad pull to his mouth “One day he just disappeared. Riko said his mother ran away with him. I don’t know if he was lying to me or not but I never saw or heard from Nathaniel again.” 

“Do you think Riko hurt him?” 

The complete lack of surprise or shock on Kevin’s face told Andrew that the thought was not a new one to him. He didn’t say anything to it and Andrew let the line of conversation go. He had plenty of experience with people tugging on painful strings to pull at Kevins. 

They settled into a silence that should have felt oppressive. At the very least it should be awkward. It only felt comfortable. Normal. Standing on the side of the road at a beaten down bus stop in the latening morning, it shouldn’t feel like anything more than a minute in Andrews day. It shouldn’t feel like an opportunity. 

When he’d left for college he’d made Bee a promise that he never expected he would have to follow through with. He didn’t make promises he would not keep and she was well aware of that. In all the time Andrew had lived in her home she had never asked him to promise her anything. She wouldn’t, not when she knew the complicated traps he would lay around himself to keep them. She’d pulled him aside the day he was leaving, car filled a mere half trunk full of his possessions and looked at him in a way he had come to associate with her having something important to say. Her words had rocked him harder than he had let show, had echoed between his ears in a way he hadn’t been able to get rid of for miles on the road. 

“If the moment comes and you feel ready to take it, it’s okay for you to let someone know you.” 

Know, not see, because Bee knew how to use her words carefully. Andrew could control what people saw of him, could control the image they had of him. To be known, to be really known in a way that even his best efforts couldn’t hide...that was not the same thing. 

Andrew kept his face completely neutral and he raised his arms up, palms flat and baring the full stretch of his armbands to Kevin. 

“I won’t take them off.” He said sternly. 

“I wouldn’t ask you too.”

Somehow, oddly, maddeningly, Andrew believed him. It was the only reason his next words were even able to leave him. 

“You can touch. Fabric only.” 

Kevin didn’t say anything and Andrew found he had no idea what he would have wanted to hear. His hands, when Kevin raised them, were steady and slow. He moved them like he was about to touch something precious. As if the bands covering Andrews history were fragile, breakable. Andrew had fought tooth and nail to be anything but those things. 

The first brush of his fingers made Andrew gasp silently, just a single exhale of air that left him feeling blown open and exposed. His heart thudded behind his ribs, a traitorous and dangerous beat against his walls. Kevin ran just the tips of his fingers up the middle of each of Andrew’s arms, barely skimming the fabric and stopping well before the band gave way to skin. He repeated the motion over, always slow and always with barely any pressure. Andrew wanted it to be over. He wanted it to never stop. 

There was no way his scars could be felt through the thick layer but it felt as inconsequential as tissue paper. Every divot and ridge felt magnified and on display. He was sure any second the pads of Kevin’s fingers would catch on one, would tear the old wounds open. 

“Andrew.” Kevin murmured and the trailing pattern of his fingers stopped, simply resting but not once grabbing. He didn’t seem disturbed or afraid of the thin blades that ran the length of the black fabric, the small bumps they made surely noticeable. 

“I don’t want to go see him.” He admitted. 

“Then don’t.” Andrew said when what he really meant was I won’t let you.

Maybe Kevin heard him anyway because when he raised his face from Andrews wrists it was with a broken open expression.

“I want to stay with you.”

Whatever air Andrew had felt punched from him and he withdrew his arms sharply, tucking them against against himself and almost wishing Kevin would look disappointed, annoyed even. He looked neither and just settled his own hands back by his sides. 

“You want too much.” Andrew said and Kevin didn’t look the slightest bit offended by his words or tone. 

“And you want too little.” 

“I want to kiss you.” Andrew blurted and he didn’t know where it came from, made no conscious decision to say it but the words were there regardless. It felt dangerous. It felt exciting. It felt a little like laying something breakable at the other man's feet and hoping he didn’t take a heel to it. 

When Kevin smiled it was like the first rays of sun parting a winter storm.

“I want to kiss you too.” 

Andrew didn’t ask even though he was almost sure of the answer he would get. He couldn’t, not now, not when Kevin’s emotions had fluctuated from one end of the spectrum to the other in the last hour. The almost yes though, the almost moment, made a home under his rib cage and kept him nearly as warm as the hand Kevin reached back out to him; the hand he let retake his own and watched as Kevin traced one thumb in small circles against his skin. 

It was simple. It was gentle. It was, maybe, a start. 

…

**Unknown:** This is Kevin. Obviously. Maybe? Did you give your number to any other guys in the last half an hour? Actually, don’t answer that. 

**Andrew:** You are inconceivable. 

**Andrew:** Text me your address. I’ll be there at 7.

**Kevin (green eyes):** To…

**Andrew:** Drive you. Obviously. 

**Kevin (green eyes):** Wait, you have a car?!?!? 


End file.
